


Confessions

by AllThoseOtherWorlds



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s09e11 Heaven Sent, Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Gallifrey, Gallifreyan culture, Gen, Not using archive warnings because I wasn't sure what needed one, The confession dial, There's nothing here that wasn't in Heaven Sent/Hell Bent though as far as warnings go I think, Torture is mentioned because of what happened in Heaven Sent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5643520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThoseOtherWorlds/pseuds/AllThoseOtherWorlds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara has a question about the confession dial, and the Doctor has probably more answers than she was looking for. Later, the Doctor mulls over the past four and a half billion years and gets some help (via chalkboard) from a friend he doesn't really remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forgive

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Doctor Who. I do not make money from this.
> 
> This is mostly canon-compliant. Clara learns about the Matrix and confession dials earlier than she did in canon, but that wouldn't change anything except for that conversation in Hell Bent so I figured it's close enough to tag as compliant.
> 
> **Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated. If you didn't like something, I'd love to know what it is so I can improve on it.**

“Doctor, I think we should have that conversation now,”

“What conversation?” The Doctor turned from where he was adjusting something on the Tardis’ settings. “Did you mention a conversation?”

“Doctor,” Clara said, “Why did you send your confession dial to Missy? How did you know she’d be alive? Why were you lying to me?”

“Oh.” He moved to sit down on the stairs to the upper level. “That conversation.”

She followed him, sitting down next to him on the staircase. “Yeah.”

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and through his hair. He’d been avoiding this discussion, because that’s what he did with things that were complicated and personal and related to Gallifrey, but he’d known Clara would get it out of him eventually. “Clara, do you know what a confession dial is?”

“Yeah,” Clara said. “Missy told me. It’s some sort of will that opens when you die, right?”

He tilted a hand back and forth, shrugging. He wasn’t surprised Missy hadn’t told her the whole truth - she never did - but this was actually an interesting take on it, adapted to be in human terms. “Not really, but not exactly wrong either. A confession dial _does_ open after a Time Lord dies to reveal their secrets, but it’s more than that. It’s a sort of … tool.”

“What do you mean? And how is this relevant to you lying about Missy being dead?”

“I’ll get there,” he promised. “On Gallifrey, there’s this superintelligent computer called the Matrix. It stores and uses the minds of dead Time Lords - when we die our minds are uploaded there. It can use algorithms to predict dangers to Gallifrey and then warn the Time Lords about them.”

“Okay…”

“But what you have to understand, Clara, is that the Time Lords are still aware, on some level, when they’re in the Matrix. It’s not the same as being alive, not exactly, but it’s not death either. It’s something in-between, but it’s enough that we need to be prepared. In the Matrix, all the other Time Lords uploaded with you can access your thoughts and memories, sort of like a shared consciousness - more than the basic telepathic connection Time Lords usually share.”

“That sounds terrible,” Clara said. “Being turned into a computer part when you die, then forced to share your mind with everyone else who’s dead too. Does the confession dial let you escape it?”

He laughed, just a little, before he sobered again. “Ah, Clara, still so human,” he said, smiling. “No, it doesn’t let me escape it. The confession dial is a- a ritual, I guess. A purification. Just before death, the Time Lord makes a telepathic transference and puts their dying mind into the confession dial. The dial forces you to confess your secrets, everything you’ve been keeping to yourself for fear of others finding out. It gives you a way to prepare yourself for the shared consciousness of the Matrix and to relieve yourself of burdens.”

Clara gaped at him. “So you were going to use it?” She frowned. “But then, why give it to Missy? Wouldn’t you need to be near it to use it?”

“Not really,” he told her. “It was _my_ confession dial. I’d already formed a telepathic connection with it so I didn’t need to be near it to use it. And yes, I was planning on using it if it became necessary.”

“But you didn’t do the whole meditation-thingy,” Clara pointed out. “Missy said Time Lords are supposed to meditate quietly before dying, so I told them to look for a party instead. It’s how we found you.”

“Clever,” the Doctor said. “I never was a good Time Lord. What’s the use in the meditation anyway? It’s just being quiet and thinking, as if you’re dead already. No, if you’re going to die, you might as well prepare by living as much as possible, that’s what I say. I did try, though. Sort of.” He didn’t think dressing up as all the previous versions of himself and re-enacting his past was what the ancient Gallifreyans had in mind when they started the tradition of meditating before death, but it was close enough for him.

“But the dial?” Clara asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“The dial is for if you’re already dead,” he told her. “Can’t do much living then, can you? Then you’ve finally got to face up to everything. I’m not really one for rituals and traditions, don’t know if you’ve noticed-”

Clara snorted. He ignored her, and continued his explanation.

“-but there are still some things that matter. You only die once, after all, or at least only once permanently. Might as well do it properly. I couldn’t, before, you know. All those times when Gallifrey was gone and I was facing near-certain death, there was no Matrix, there was no Gallifrey, so there was no _point_ to the confession dial. I mean, where would you take it? Wouldn’t want to be stuck in it forever, after all, that’d be a bit dull.”

“Is that why you gave it to Missy, then?” Clara asked. “So she could take it back to Gallifrey?”

“That’s part of it, yeah.”The Doctor fiddled with the hem of his jacket. “I needed it to get back to Gallifrey, and she knew where it was. She’s not exactly trustworthy at the best of times, but even she wouldn’t refuse to return a confession dial to the Matrix. She hates me sometimes, but not that much.”

She nodded. “Makes sense, I suppose,” she said, but he knew it didn’t, really - she had no cultural context for this, no way to know just what a confession dial meant - but it was so nice that she was listening, and that she cared, so he let it be. “But how did you know she’d be alive?”

“I didn’t know, exactly,” he told her, watching carefully. This was the part where she’d been angry before, and as much as he respected her anger, it was still unpleasant to have it directed at him. “But I’ve known her for a long time, and she’s escaped certain, permanent death more times than anyone else I know - she’s burned through her lives faster than any other Time Lord I know, but she’s still alive. If anyone would have survived, it was her.”

“So you hoped she was alive?” Clara asked. She didn’t sound angry, just curious. The conversation must have calmed her down, just like he’d hoped it would.

“I…” He sighed. “Maybe a little,” he admitted. “We’ve known each other a long time, fought against and with each other. She’s familiar.” Clara hadn’t lived long enough to experience the strange feeling of relief and familiarity that came with knowing someone for centuries. It surpassed love or hate, really, and he hoped that Clara never had to experience the loneliness it often stemmed from.

“Missy said the confession dial is supposed to be sent to your closest friend,” Clara said, and this time it did sound a little like an accusation.

“She would say that,” he said, frowning. “That’s not quite the proper translation. The confession dial is supposed to be sent to someone you’d let know your secrets. Usually that’s a friend, but not always. It just has to be someone you’d be willing to confess to.”

“Why Missy?” Clara asked, and was what she’d wanted to know all along, wasn’t it? She’d listened to him talk about the confession dial because that was what _he_ had needed, but this answer here, this was what _she_ had been looking for.

He took a deep breath.

“Missy has known me longer than almost anyone else,” the Doctor said. “Most of what I’d confess she already knows, and the rest - things done and regretted during war - wouldn’t phase her because she’s done worse and always anticipates the worst in others. My confession dial wouldn't really change anything with her, not really, not like it would with-”

“With me?”

He looked away. She was doing that thing again where her eyes inflated like balloons and he couldn’t handle it.

“Yes,” he told her. “Like you.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “It’s always easier to confess to an enemy than to a friend, and over the centuries she’s been both but you’ve only ever been my friend.”

“Doctor-”

“No,” he said. “Clara, you’re my _friend._ I trust you with my life and my Tardis, and those two things are very important to me. I’ve known Missy longer, but _you_ _’re_ the one I trust to save my life and travel in my Tardis and go on adventures with me on a regular basis.”

“Then why do I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming?” Clara asked.

He looked at her. “Because you’re still human. You weren’t alive during the Time War, or on Gallifrey when I was a child. You can’t experience time the way I do, and I have secrets you literally _couldn_ _’t_ understand. And…” he broke off for a moment, then kept going, softly. “And you trust me and like me, sometimes, and I want that to continue, and I’ve done things-” he broke off again, and this time he didn’t continue.

Clara’s face was soft, but thankfully she was no longer doing the inflating thing with her eyes.

“Doctor,” she said. “I want you to listen to me. You’re my friend, and I care about you, and I _know_ that you are trying to be the best person you can be, and that’s what matters. I get that you needed to send the dial to one of your own people, and it’s fine. But I want you to know that you can trust me. Do you get that?”

He nodded. “…Thank you,” he said, after a moment’s pause.

“You're welcome,” she told him, standing up from the staircase. “And Doctor?”

“Yes?” he asked, also standing.

She smiled. “Please tell me the next time you suspect an enemy might not be as dead as we thought.”

“Well, she’s only really an enemy _sometimes_ ,” he said, but at the look on Clara’s face he nodded. “Yes, I’ll do that, sorry.”

“Good,” she said. “And now that that’s done, where are we off to next?”

“Well, there was this one planet I was thinking of visiting. It’s got no sun, did you know that? The sun died but the people who live there are so advanced that they shielded their planet from the blast and made an artificial one to take it’s place, and sometimes they switch up the colour and brightness for special occasions…”

He kept talking, excitedly explaining the planet to her as he set the controls, and they were off.


	2. Forget

_Roughly four and a half billion years later_

The Doctor sat down on the staircase to the upper level of the Tardis control room and took a deep breath. There was something here, something he could almost, _almost_ remember, but he couldn’t tell what it was. That meant it had to do with Clara, he knew. Had to do with the companion he’d forced himself to forget.

He let his mind wander, thinking over the events of the past however long it had been, and found himself holding his confession dial. He ran his hands over the inscribed writing, which gave his name (as “The Doctor”, not his secret name) and the standard instructions to return the dial to Gallifrey upon his death.

For four and a half billion years he’d been in the confession dial, living the same day over and over, burning himself up each day to make a new replacement for himself. He hadn’t remembered each day as he’d lived the next, not at the time, but he did now. The confession dial had stored his memories each time he’d burned himself up and then transmitted them all to him upon his escape. He didn’t think the Council had actually intended for that bit to happen, that extra little piece of torture, but it had all the same.

And even if they hadn’t intended for him to remember each day of those many, _many_ days, it was still torture, wasn’t it? The very fact of it was wrong, and they knew it. Confession dials were never meant to be used by the living, never meant to be used for interrogation. They were meant for death, and the council had never intended for him to die there.

He put the dial to his forehead and closed his eyes. What of his death now? Was he still going to use the confession dial, even after all that had been done to him through it? Was he going to forego the ritual and allow himself to be uploaded to the matrix without it? Was he going to ignore even the Matrix and just let himself die forever?

Hopefully he wouldn’t have to decide for a while yet, of course, but in his experience it was never long before he was in another situation where permanent death was a definite possibility. It was always best to assume you were going to live, but that was easiest to do when you weren’t fretting over things being left unsettled if you didn’t.

“What do I do now?” he asked the empty room, not sure whether he was talking to himself or to the Tardis.

The Tardis didn’t answer, instead continuing to hum reassuringly in the back of his mind.

“I can’t remember her, but I remember all those days I shouldn’t have,” he mused. “There’s irony for you, I guess. Is that irony? I can never remember the definition.”

A small part of his mind chided him for being so melodramatic. It wasn’t solving anything, was it? Better just to ignore it and keep running.

He told that part of him to shut up. “Shut up,” he said, out loud just because he could. “I’ve had a rough couple of millenia and if I feel like being dramatic about it for a little while then I’m going to do just that.”

He got up from the stairs and went to the upper level, pacing back and forth.

“I chose to fight it,” he said. “Every day for so, _so_ many years I chose to fight. Why?” Had he done it for her, this Clara he cared so much for but couldn’t remember? Had he done it to protect the information, even though he wasn’t even sure it was the truth?

Had he done it just because that was his nature, to fight against those forcing him into submission?

“Does it even matter?” He asked the chalkboard, turning to face it.

“Be a Doctor,” it told him, words written in a handwriting not his own. Clara’s handwriting.

“How?” he asked it. “How do I do that? It’s been billions of years and I’m _tired_.”

He sighed and sat down on the stairs again. He didn’t regret banishing Rassilon - the man had helped Gallifrey quite a lot, but he’d had too much power for too long and nobody to remind him of who he was.

It was important to have someone, he knew. He remembered earlier times, darker times, and he was suddenly very grateful that he always found someone in the end. Someone like Clara or Amy and Rory or Donna or Martha or Rose or any one of so many other people who travelled with him and kept him grounded and _himself._

The chalkboard was still there, telling him who to be, reminding him of what he was and what he tried not to become. He smiled at it, just a little.

“Thank you,” he said, getting up and walking over to it once more. He stood there for a while, just looking at the words, before turning and walking back over to the Tardis console.

“Well,” he said, looking at the confession dial still in his hand. “I’m still not certain what I’m going to do with you, but I don’t doubt it’ll come to me.” He didn’t want them to have this power over him, to be able to take this away from him, but the memories and the knowledge of what they’d done still hurt. He sighed and put the dial back in his pocket, pushing the issue out of his mind for the time being. He’d work out what he was going to do eventually, but he could really only handle mulling over his own death for so long before he had to do something else.

“So, Dear,” he said, addressing the Tardis. “Where to?”

The Tardis whirred and took off, activating the holographic circuits along the way. He frowned. What were those on for? The Tardis hum in his mind sounded hopeful and worried, so she was probably trying to cheer him up. He smiled softly, patting the console.

“Don’t fret, Dear,” he said. “I’ll be fine, eventually. I always am, and I can’t be the Doctor if I don’t move on sooner or later.” He scowled. “And turn off whatever that hologram is!”

The hologram stayed on, but the Tardis sounded a little less worried than before.


End file.
